Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of my election to the House for the first time, but Deputy Tommy Broughan has served 18 more years than me.

I have tabled three amendments, two of which deal with term limits and the other with a waiver. I will not rehearse the arguments I made on Committee Stage regarding term limits, with which I do not agree. The renewal of boards is important, but democracy is also important in the credit union movement. Renewal is happening without term limits, but it is clear the Minister will impose them. Given that is the case, I seek in amendments Nos. 24 and 27 to extend the provision whereby board members can only serve nine years out of 15 to 12. I urge the Minister of State to accept them.

I tabled amendment No. 25 following the consideration of issues I raised at the joint committee. I suggested focusing on smaller credit unions. While accepting there will be term limits, the impact of having to comply with the legislation will be that some credit unions will have to prevent directors from continuing after nine years service. This will be a problem where they have a small number of people with the necessary skills from which to draw. They cannot just appoint anybody as a director. He or she must have experience and so on, as provided for in the Bill. A waiver clause must be provided for small credit unions that will be unable to fulfil the requirements of section 14.

When I raised this issue with the Minister, I was invited to table an amendment. My amendment provides that, "The requirement of this subsection may be waived by the Bank in exceptional circumstances upon application by the credit union". This would not mean credit unions could disregard the section, but if they considered it was having a detrimental impact on them or they could not comply with it, an appeals mechanism should be provided and the Registrar of Credit Unions and the Central Bank would have the final say. This is an attempt to deal with unintentional consequences of the Bill. If there are term limits, it will impose renewal on the sector, which is fine in the context of from where the Government is coming, but in imposing renewal it needs to be ensured smaller credit unions will not be detrimentally affected. The safety clause is that the Registrar of Credit Unions and the Central Bank would have the final say. Perhaps the Minister might examine the wording. I was invited to do this and this is the wording I have brought forward. It is important that this provision be included because there could be unintended consequences of term limits if it is not. If the final decision is left to the Cental Bank, there should be nothing to fear.

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